by L. B. Dunbar
I killed our son.
I didn’t mean for it to happen.
Everyone says it was an accident.
It was an accident, but I was trained to save people.
I should have been able to do something.
With these thoughts in mind, I cling to Evie as much as she’s clinging to me. My arms circle her body, pressing her into me while she’s wrapped around me just as tight. My eyes close, and I just breathe her in.
“Don’t let me go.” The plea in her voice mixes with another tone. The cry of our twelve-year-old son blends with her words, and I freeze. My hands drop to Evie’s sides as I’m instantly suffocating under the weight of her against me. Her body is too heavy. Her embrace too tight.
I don’t deserve her.
My hands gently push at her hips, pressing her away from me in hopes she’ll take the hint.
She does. Her legs drop, and her arms release. She slides down my body and steps back, putting space between us again. For a moment, I felt as if I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get the air I needed. In her absence, I feel the same. My chest heaves as Evie takes another step away from me, and I realize the struggle to breathe comes from the loss of her. I’m ready to reach for her, tug her back to me when she speaks.
“I see,” she says, her voice quiet. Her wrists cross before her, fingers entwining as they do when her palms meet. “I think you should take me back to the Lodge.”
“Evie, you don’t understand,” I state, reaching out for her after all, but she takes another step away.
“I understand, James. Nothing has changed in six years, except me. I’m the one still holding on. My friends have moved on with their lives. People have moved into the community. Your brothers have fallen in love. You have a new group to call family. I’m the one stuck in time.” She takes a deep breath. “But that’s why I’m here,” she says before exhaling. “It’s time to move forward.”
With that, she steps around me, stalking off toward my Harley, and for the first time in years, I’m nervous. She’s going to move on without me.
And I can’t exist in this world without her.
15
Caught In Between
[Evie]
I’ve never been in an accident. Never broken a bone except for the tip of a finger once while working on making jewelry. But if I could imagine being shattered in a million places, it’s how my body felt riding behind James back to the Lodge. Every bump hurt. Every brush against him caused an ache. I didn’t know how to be with him, no more than I knew how to be without him.
I’d moved on in my own right, or at least I’d been attempting to. I’d finally said yes to dates with Dalton, which moved to hesitant kisses and cautious fumblings. One night, I almost gave in, just needing to feel the weight of someone else above me. I’d felt so guilty for almost sleeping with him but was determined to make it right, so I decided to seek out James and end us. Dalton had marriage material written all over him, and I deserved someone who wanted to be good to me.
For some reason, Outlander comes to mind. A historical romance about a woman falling through time and falling in love with a Scottish rebel while still married to a man in her current time period. I was always torn about her return to Frank, the man she married, although I never considered Frank a decent man, and the undeniable destiny of loving Jamie. Perhaps I was in some kind of time warp myself.
Dalton, however, was too good for me.
James and I don’t speak as we ride to the Lodge. Once he pulls up before it, he doesn’t kill the engine, just like the other night, and I slide off the back of the bike as quickly as I can. I hold out the helmet to him.
“Keep it for next time,” he states.
“There won’t be a next time, James.” As he doesn’t take the helmet from me, I set it on the seat behind him, and James catches my wrist.
“Do we have a deal?” Glancing up at his roughened voice, I’m prepared to snap at him and tell him how I keep my promises. Then I see his eyes. Blue so clear, it’s like looking up at a perfect summer sky.
“Name a time and place. I’ll be there.” The words are flat. My insides feel hollow, and I’m bone-tired. I have nothing left to give him but this one night, which won’t be a hardship. Sex with James was always off the charts.
+ + +
A memory haunts me as I lay in bed that night.
“Yes, yes, yes,” I growled, curling a fist into the sheets. We’d taken to doing it in this position as my belly was growing larger, and James was afraid he’d squish me. My knees were pressed into the bed. My cheek plastered to the sheet. James’s fingers clutched at my hips, bruising me as he slammed into me. I’d never been so full, and my release spilled over him.
I don’t know why it’s my go-to memory. Maybe it was the force of my orgasm. I cried that night. My toes curled. I dripped onto the sheet.
Continuing to slide together, James was out of control as he pummeled into me. My hormones had increased my appetite for sex like the overly hungry pregnant woman I was.
“Fuck,” James groaned, stilling as he pumped into me, releasing a wealth of seed. “I love being inside you.”
At that instant, I knew I never wanted to separate from the man buried within me. He completed me, as the cheesy statement goes. I wanted to always feel as I felt at that moment.
“I love that you’re already pregnant,” James would tease, as it allowed him to be bare within me. Of course, that’s what got us in trouble in the first place, which wasn’t responsible, but neither was skinny-dipping with a stranger.
“I’m never going back,” he’d whisper, implying how he’d never cover himself again with me. We were going to have plenty more babies if we continued at the rate we had sex. Or so I thought then.
At the time, my only concern was James loving me. He loved being bare. He loved being in me. He loved sex with me. But he didn’t love me.
James collapsed next to me on our bed, which I struggled to call ours even though he said it over and over again. We’d been married in a small church service. I wore a white shift dress to disguise the small bump in my belly. James wore a navy blue suit that accentuated his eyes. We had a Christmas wedding, which wasn’t how or when I ever predicted being wed. My parents did not attend. I walked myself down the aisle.
James had wanted to do right by me. He would have gone to a courthouse on that first day, he later told me. He would have married me on the mountain where we met, he said. It was all romantic sounding, if only he loved me.
And then one night, he told me he did.
With his hand on my belly, freed from the sheet and my nightie so he could place his warm palm on my stretched skin, James said he loved me.
“I’m going to be your rock,” he said to me. “A boulder to build your life on. I can be strong enough for both of us, and it’s time you know I love you.”
He swallowed with nerves, his hand rubbing my swell while his eyes watched the movement of his caress.
“I love both of you,” he whispered to my belly, and I captured his face in my hands.
“Look at me,” I whispered to him then. His eyes met mine in our dark bedroom. “I can’t imagine life without you. I love you, too.”
For all our nights of wild, out of control sex, that was the first night James took me slow and deep. He wanted me to feel that love he professed, and I felt it from the top of my head to the toes on my feet. I believed him—in him—in our future.
And then the boulder crumbled, and we were nothing but dust.
+ + +
I’d fallen asleep to the memory and woken with dry, crusty eyes. I’d been crying again, and my lids were heavy and swollen. I roll in the bed, picking up my phone to find a missed call from Dalton, and guilt blankets me. In many ways, he was right. I shouldn’t have returned to Blue Ridge. I could have handled everything with a simple phone call and attorneys, but something inside me told me I needed to see James.
One last time.
I owed it to him w
hen he clearly didn’t think he owed me anything.
With that thought, I call Dalton. I owed him as well.
“Hey, honey,” he breathes into the phone.
“Hey.” My voice cracks, rough from tears and a restless night.
“You okay? I tried to call you last night.”
I swallow back the shame I feel at being out with James, allowing him to give me two more orgasms against a car at a bonfire. I’m turning into a hussy.
“I’m good.” I almost choke on the reply. “It’s been more difficult than I expected to be here.”
“Come home,” he whines, and I sense a smile in his voice. He’s such a good man with a good heart. He’s been patient and understanding with me, and we’re on the verge of something real and serious. I want that with him. It’s why I’m here.
He isn’t Southern-born or bred but ended up here after law school, pursuing his career in legalese. He claims to love the coastline of our fair city because he grew up on his own coastline along Lake Michigan in Michigan. I haven’t ever been there, but he assures me the weather down here is a million times better than sub-zero temperatures and unexpected snowstorms. I’ll take his word on it.
“I can’t yet,” I admit, without giving away the full reason. “I have an estate sale today.” Estate sales are where I do my best shopping; there and fairs or flea markets. It’s a Sunday, and I’m planning to lose myself in other people’s tossed treasure in hopes of my next inspiration.
“I could come there,” Dalton suggests, sounding hopeful as he presents the idea. I swallow back my immediate no and fight to keep my voice steady.
“I don’t want to interrupt your schedule, and you know how bored you get at these sales.” Dalton once went with me to a large estate auction, intending to show his support of my craft and small business. Within fifteen minutes, he was bored while attempting to give it his best effort.
He chuckles softly into the phone. “I’d still be there for you.” He would. I know he means it, with all his best intentions and his generous heart. He’s been a busy man, working hard his entire life, and he’s ready to settle down. He assures me he doesn’t need kids, he doesn’t want them, but a man like him should have them. He’d be a great dad despite what he says.
“I know, honey,” I say, lowering my voice as I swipe fingers through my hair, holding back the long tresses from my forehead. I’m such a terrible person.
“So how much longer will you be there?” he questions.
“I shouldn’t be more than a week. My girls’ night out got cut short.”
“Oh yeah. What happened?” The pleasant tone in his innocent question drives the shovel deeper into the hole I’m digging.
“Oh, I just saw another old friend, who wasn’t so great to see.” I cover my eyes, closing them, as if he can see me, which he can’t because we are speaking on the phone.
“Need me to kick someone’s ass?” The words surprise me as Dalton is relatively calm, and while he’s solid in stature, I can’t picture him ever getting in a fight. My thoughts race back to James pinning Rusty Miller to the bar top last night. The display of masculinity should have totally been a turn-off, but instead, the possessive growl and hissed warning did nothing but spike my libido. Which does not need to continue spiking around my soon-to-be ex-husband.
“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” I tease.
“You know you don’t have to go it alone, Evelyn. I’m here for you.”
“I know,” I whisper, guilt continuing to fill my cup and spill over, pour to the table, drip on the floor, and puddle on the rug. I’m going to hell. I’m already in it, and I just need to get through one thing before I’m free and clear.
I pull back the phone and check the time.
“Dalton, I should probably let you go. I need to shower and get a move on.”
“Okay, honey. Call me if you need me.” The message is clear. He’d be here at a moment’s notice if I asked.
“Thank you. Have a good day.”
“You too. I miss you.”
“I miss you,” I say, realizing it’s not a lie, but it’s just not the entire truth.
I miss someone else more.
16
Morning News
[James]
The weekend passes without additional contact with Evie. I had to work, and I knew she had an estate sale to visit. Her business started as a hobby. My girl likes jewelry, and at one point, I thought she started the work because I didn’t have the means to buy her everything. We were not poor but keeping up with the socialite lifestyle Evie had prior to agreeing to marry me was not something I could do, nor did I want to. I had money coming from Giant Brewing Company by default of being a family owner. Shockingly, I hadn’t been cut out or written out of future wills despite my behavior toward them. I hadn’t worked at the brewery since I was a teenager because I wanted to make my life on my own terms. I denied my wealth and decided to save every penny of the dividends for Michael and his college fund.
I’d just gotten off an overnight shift and was passing through town when I saw Evie’s Jeep outside Dolores’s Diner. It had a new name, but it was always going to be Dolores’s Diner in my head, and Dolores Chance would always be important to me. She and Evelyn did not get along, but on occasion, Evie would allow us to go to the diner for breakfast or lunch. You just could not pass up on Dolores’s skillet scramblers or her chicken salad sandwich.
I take a U-turn on Main Street and find a parking spot a few spaces down from Evie’s vehicle. I don’t typically frequent Dolores’s on my own, but occasionally with the firehouse guys and every so often with my biker brothers. Entering the diner, I feel like all the air swishes out of the place. A strange vibe draws conversations to silence as I scan the room looking for my wife. Once I see her, I understand everyone’s disquiet, but I don’t give a fuck about what others think of me.
I stalk to her table.
“Giant?” I huff, greeting my eldest brother, who looks cozy sitting with my woman on a Monday morning.
“James,” he says, lifting his coffee mug for his smug lips while Evie shifts in the booth seat to face me. At one time, Giant was my best friend. We’re twenty-two months apart but back to back in schooling. It killed me when he went off to the military, but I understood why he did it—Pap was his inspiration, and Giant had a mission to prove himself. I had the same desire to be someone, but I wanted to do it locally, traipsing through the mountains I already loved, hoping to protect the forest and the people who entered it.
“Peach,” I direct to my wife, whose mouth hangs open a second before snapping shut when I help myself to the bench seat next to her. My arm stretches behind her on the back of the booth.
“Good morning,” she mutters.
“This certainly looks cozy,” I snap, referencing their breakfast plates spread across the table.
“I wanted coffee,” Giant states.
“How’s Letty?” I dig, mentioning his woman and recall mine had lunch with her the other day.
Giant shakes his head with a smirk at the mention of his future wife.
“She’s at home with Finn preparing for our wedding.” His deep brows draw together, scowling at me. An envelope arrived in the mail, and I knew what it contained—an invitation—but I didn’t open it. I don’t do family.
“Giant was just telling me all about the wedding plans.” Evie faces Giant while she speaks. “I’m so sorry again. I wish I’d known sooner.”
Her attention snaps back to me, eyes narrowing.
“You should come,” Giant states, and Evie and I swivel our heads in his direction. “The both of you.”
“No,” I say forcefully while Evie sweetly replies, “I’d love to attend.”
An awkward silence falls over the table a second until Evie speaks, “Giant’s getting married at the ridge.” Her voice is quiet as she explains this to me, knowing the significance of the location.
I glare at my brother across the table. Last fall, he took hi
s girl to Pap’s old camping spot near the ancient ranger outpost, and I’d interrupted them on an impromptu visit to the place. It’s a three-mile hike up the mountain behind Giant’s cabin, which he inherited from our pap once he returned from the military. No one begrudged him the gift. Pap and Giant were exceptionally close, and Giant needed something to do with himself while his wife lay dying of cancer, and he struggled to re-acclimate to civilian life after years of service.
But the ridge? There is no way I’m going there for a fucking wedding.
I sense Evie’s hand fist on the bench seat more than I see it. I clench my own hand, fighting the sensation to reach for her hand to comfort her.
“It’s a great location,” Evie states, her voice holding steady and low. “It’s predicted to be a beautiful day Friday.”
“I can’t attend,” I reiterate, softer than the harsh rejection moments ago.
“Why not?” Evie questions, turning her attention to me.
“I just can’t,” I repeat, not meeting her eyes but glaring back at my brother.
“That’s not an explanation. Your brother asked you to his wedding. Did you know Billy was going to officiate?” Evie huffs with humor. “Billy? He’s going to play the role of minister.” Evie snorts.
I don’t even want to know how Billy obtained a minister’s license.
“I said I’m not going,” I say, turning to her, and Giant chuckles across the table.
“You two haven’t changed.” He smiles as I look back at him.
“What do you mean?” Evie asks.
“You’d bicker until one of you gives in, usually James, because you’d give him this look.” Giant points a finger at Evie, circling in the air as if tracing over her face, and I glance back at her, wondering what Giant is playing at. “James would melt under that look.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I state, turning to my brother.
